


don't be afraid

by Zoa



Series: The Reylo Tales: My Collection of Reylo One-Shots [16]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Background Roux, Claustrophobia, College AU, College Student Ben Solo, College Student Rey (Star Wars), Darkness, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Rey Gets A Hug, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo Halloween, creepy feelings, fake haunted house, loud noises, rey and ben are close in age, this develops very quickly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoa/pseuds/Zoa
Summary: Rey is invited to haunted house with her friends for Halloween. Ben Solo, the guy she can't stand, is there too. Spooky shenanigans commence and draw the two together in an unexpected way.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: The Reylo Tales: My Collection of Reylo One-Shots [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691227
Comments: 20
Kudos: 120





	don't be afraid

Rey didn’t know how she’d let Rose talk her into going to a haunted house on Halloween. But the other girl and Armitage, her boyfriend, had been relentless, insisting that Rey would have a blast. The whole group was going, they said. Poe and Finn and Gwen. There was no reason to be scared. And Rey wanted to try even though she nursed a serious case of claustrophobia due to some unfortunate childhood circumstances.

She wanted to try _because_ of those circumstances.

She wanted to face her fears.

But now, standing outside the fake haunted house as the sun dropped below the cornstalk maze nearby while the group waited for their turn to go inside, Rey wasn’t as much scared as irritated.

She should have known he’d be there. She should have known Armie wouldn’t be able to let his bellicose roommate Ben Solo spend Halloween alone in their shared apartment, even though everyone knew that’s where he’d rather be.

Nope. Now he was here, his hulking, great-smelling, stupid presence right next to Rey as she shivered in a cold breeze. Though she was dressed properly for the weather in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and jacket, Rey couldn’t help the sense that his dark sweater was somehow even warmer. Maybe it was the way it clung to his giant arms and firm chest, leaving little to her imagination.

Rey remembered the blazing crush she’d had on him in freshman year; he was a sophomore at the time, the quiet roommate of her roommate’s new boyfriend. She would ask Rose if she could come on her visits to Armitage, and Rose was delighted to help Rey catch Ben’s eye.

But it never happened. He stayed on the other side of the room, huddled over his computer. Every now and then he’d glance up and glare at the group taking up space in his dorm room. She tried to start conversations with him but he only made noncommittal noises and took the first opportunity he could to return to his computer.

The final straw for Rey came when he corrected her in class, which wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t continued by saying her point was essentially garbage by pointing out all the flaws and suggesting his own was somehow better. That was two years ago. Rey didn’t imagine much had changed.

There was no denying Ben was hot. She’d given up that fight long ago.

But his personality left much to be desired.

He was arrogant and rude and apathetic to anyone else’s feelings.

So, despite those early fantasies, Rey tried to push him out of her mind. The only reason she tolerated him was because he was friends with Armie and thus connected to Rose, who Rey adored. A seemingly mutual agreement fell between them over the years; when she and Ben were in their mutual friend group, they tended to stay on opposite sides of the gathering. If they were forced to be closer for some reason, they remained silent and ignored each other.

As she was thinking over those unspoken rules, his ridiculously intense brown eyes turned on her and Rey quickly pulled her gaze away, embarrassment heating her face that she’d been caught staring at him. Well, that was one way to keep the cold out.

“That was so scary!” A girl squealed to her boyfriend as they exited the house and passed Rey’s group. “It was so dark! I couldn’t see anything!”

All embarrassment forgotten, Rey’s heart shot into her throat and she wrapped her arms around herself, abruptly wondering if there was still some way to get out of this.

“Alright everyone!” Armie called. “Our turn!”

Too late.

“Terrific.” Rey heard Ben mutter sarcastically. “Can’t wait.”

For the first time, she agreed with his sentiments.

The group surged forward, into the greenish, screaming confines of the haunted house.

Rey's stomach sunk like a stone. She had a bad feeling about this.

****

She got separated. Somehow she lost Rose’s hand and ended up down a hallway that seemed to go in circles. Every time she thought she knew where she was, she ended up in a room of horrors with a bunch of actors in crazy make-up who jumped her but there was no sign of her people. Despite how abyss-like the house had looked from the outside, it wasn’t completely lightless, thankfully. Which left Rey wondering what that girl outside had been talking about.

Deciding after the fifth wrong door that getting out was of higher priority than finding the group, Rey meandered through the house for the exit but only got more lost. Frustrated tears pricked at her eyes and she sniffed them away, surging toward another door that had to lead somewhere. For fuck’s sake, the house wasn’t even that big!

When she opened the door she was surprised to see it was a relatively normal-looking room, albeit covered in fake spiderwebs and dust, with a smattering of dilapidated Victorian furniture; there weren’t even any creepy people around. But there was another door on the other side of the room.

_Maybe that’s the way to the exit_. Rey stepped into the room and made a beeline for that second door.

Behind her, the first door slammed shut and she twisted with a yelp. She stood perfectly still for a few seconds, wondering when the jump-scare would come, but nothing happened. Rey frowned.

“So all this room does is slam a door?” She mused. “That's not scary…”

The lights went out.

And Rey panicked.

“Oh no.” She ran back to the first door and tried the knob. Locked. She couldn’t open it, no matter how hard she pulled or pushed. “No, no, no no no.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as a soft creaking noise filled the room, as if someone was walking up behind her, creeping slowly toward her, trapping her.

_It’s just a sound effect, it’s just a hidden speaker somewhere_. _There’s nobody here._

The attempt to calm herself down didn’t work.

“Can someone open this door? Please?” She called, pulling at the handle again but to no avail. “Please let me out!”

The creaking stopped. Maybe there was someone in the room. An actor who heard the desperation in her voice. Rey turned, her back to the door, hoping to see a sheepish teenager but instead she saw more blackness.

Then the pounding started.

Rey covered her ears at the hellish sound, as if something was trying to break through the walls, trying to reach her. Not even the sound of her racing heart could cover the noise. The tears she’d been fighting streamed down her face as fear finally won out.

She sunk to the floor, transported back to her old house, back in the closet Unkar tossed her into, in the dark, no way out, her fists aching as she beat on the door and begged him to let her out.

As suddenly as it started, the pounding stopped and light filled the room, blinding Rey so that she had to close her eyes.

“Rey? Are you alright?”

A familiar baritone filled her ears and she opened her eyes to see Ben Solo kneeling in front of her, a very unfamiliar look of concern in his amber eyes. The second door was open behind him. Rey jumped up and rushed for that door but was too late. It snapped shut just as her fingers brushed the knob.

“No.” She groaned and pulled at it desperately even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. The lights were going to go out again but she didn’t know if she could handle another round. “I need to get out of here. Ben,” she knew she must have looked crazy when she turned to him, “please, I need to get out.”

For some reason he didn’t question her but quickly made his way over and pulled at the knob. He frowned and tried again with more force, shoving at the door a couple of times, too. “Wow. This thing is really stuck…”

Pitch black filled the room again and Rey whimpered. She didn’t mean to. She didn’t want to. The last thing she needed was to show Ben Solo any weakness. He was probably already going to hold this over her forever.

But he surprised her.

“Rey, it’s okay.” His tone was surprisingly devoid of disdain. She might even say he was trying to comfort her. “It’s just a trick. It’ll be over soon.”

Right. He was right. She knew that.

But the pounding started again and she sobbed.

Nearly immediately Rey was pulled against Ben’s chest - she was right, it _was_ solid - and held in a tight, protective embrace. Surprising herself, Rey burrowed into him, shrinking away from the chaotic noise around her and toward the sound of his strong, steady heartbeat.

“I’m right here,” he said, his lips at her ear, his tone soothing. “I’m right here, sweetheart.”

Why was that comforting? He hated her, didn’t he? Didn’t she hate him, too?

“Hold my hand,” he told her pulling away slightly only to stop when her fingers refused to let go of his sweater. “I’m going to get you out of here, Rey. Take my hand.”

Okay. That was a good enough reason to let go. Rey obeyed and when he found her hand in the dark grasped tightly to it. A different kind of pounding filled the air as, Rey guessed from his shadowy movements, Ben repeatedly kicked at the door. More quickly than she imagined it would, the door cracked and gave way and the blessed, green light from the hallway came shining through.

Ben pulled Rey out of the room and through a crowd of shocked actors and patrons.

“Hey, man!” A bloodied clown with an axe in his head stepped in the way. “You’re gonna have to pay for that!”

But to Rey’s relief - and a bit of something else - Ben pushed the other man aside and made for the heavenly sight of an exit sign.

Rey could count on one hand how many times she’d been as relieved as the moment when she stepped out into the cold October air and saw the stars and the shadow of the corn maze against the night sky. But Ben didn’t stop until they reached a small collection of wooden picnic tables about thirty feet from the house, surrounded by a circle of out-of-place solar tiki torches.

Well, he might have kept going all the way to the parking lot if Rey hadn’t tugged on his hand. “Ben. W-we can stop now.”

He pulled up abruptly beside a table and turned around. “Oh.” He glanced between her and the house, as if wondering how they’d gotten so far away, before settling a searching gaze on her. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah. I’m fine.” He looked skeptical. “Really, I am… you don’t have to…” Rey swallowed back the lump in her throat as all the adrenaline and terror of the past twenty minutes dissipated into exhaustion and frustration, but a tear fell down her cheek anyway. The next thing she knew Rey was back in his arms, back against a sturdy chest that somehow blocked out all the bad things.

“It’s okay to cry,” he whispered and Rey was stunned to feel his lips against her temple in the shadow of a kiss as he spoke. “If you want me to leave I will. I don’t want to, but I’ll do whatever you say.”

Rey didn’t truly know why but she lifted her hands and curled her fingers into his sweater at his waist. “I don’t want you to go.”

His chest heaved in a deep sigh, as if he were relieved. “Then I’ll stay.”

“Thank you.” Rey let herself press her cheek to his shoulder, breathing in the heady mix of sandalwood and something deep and spicy that made up _him_. As long as he was letting her, she might as well enjoy it. Why was he letting her? “I thought you hated me,” she whispered.

“What?” His entire body jolted but he didn’t let go. “No, I-I don’t hate you. Why do you think that?”

Rey lifted her head and frowned at him. “You’ve been, well… you haven’t wanted anything to do with me. And there was that time in class…” she flushed red at the memory.

“Oh, shit, no, Rey.” Ben swallowed and looked more uncomfortable than she’d ever seen him. “That’s… damn it.”

More confused now than ever, Rey extricated herself from his arms, though she immediately wished she hadn’t. The cold was more biting now with the sun gone and the knowledge of what being in his hold felt like.

“What are you talking about?” She was too tired to mince words. Thankfully, he must have realized that.

“I don’t hate you at all.” Ben ran a hand through his hair and his face was pinched as if he were in pain. “I actually,” he audibly swallowed, “have a…a crush on you. I have for awhile.”

“What?” She squeaked. “You do?”

He nodded. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” His shoulders dropped as if releasing a heavy burden. “I get nervous around you. You’re smart and beautiful and kind and your laugh is probably the best sound I’ve ever heard. But I’m, well, me.” He scowled and Rey almost laughed because he looked so damn intimidating confessing his own awkwardness.

But something still didn’t make sense. “What about class?” She asked. “Why did you argue with me like that?”

Now his face went beet red. “I was trying to help.”

“Help?” She repeated incredulously. “You were trying to help?”

“You just needed a push in the right direction. I thought I could nudge you closer.”

Rey gawked at him for a few seconds while he stood there, looking for all the world like he was living a nightmare.

“I hated you for that,” she exclaimed finally. “You were a total asshole!”

He winced and nodded. “Yeah, I know. I did try to apologize a couple of times but you refused to even look at me. Which I don’t blame you for. I realized I had no chance after that, so I shut up and stayed away. But I really am sorry. For all of it. I never meant to hurt you. Please believe me, I would never… I would never hurt you.” Rey could tell that was the thing that worried him most; that she might think he’d done it all on purpose.

But that wasn’t the case.

A miscommunication. That’s all the past two years of hostility had been. A huge miscommunication.

So he wasn’t actually a terrible guy. Just a painfully shy one.

Except for that night. That night he’d been… more.

Rey bit into her bottom lip and stepped back to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She could tell he was shocked but he still tentatively returned the hug.

“I think you were still an asshole,” she said, “but you made up for it tonight.”

His chest expanded and she heard him release a shuddering breath before his arms tightened just a bit around her. For a little while, Rey wasn’t sure how long, they were silent, simply standing there in an embrace Rey didn’t want to end.

“Rey.” There was a nervous edge in his tone and she raised her head. He definitely looked apprehensive and she drew back a little more with a frown.

“What is it?”

“What happened in there?” He asked. “You don’t have to tell me, of course, but… I’ve never seen you like that.”

“Oh.” She supposed she could give him a little bit of an explanation. He’d been gentle and understanding so far. “I’m, um, claustrophobic. I can’t stand the dark or enclosed spaces.”

His eyes widened. “Why the hell did you come to a _haunted house_?”

That wasn’t so gentle.

“I…” she stammered. “I wanted… Never mind.” She finished with an unnecessary snap. His shoulders stiffened and Rey squeezed her eyes shut. This wasn’t his fault. Probably the only reason she was outside now and not catatonic on the floor of that room was because of him. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

“No,” he sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound judgmental.” Rey opened her eyes to see contrition written all over him. “But you should know,” he added, “you don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”

“It wasn’t just that…” she averted her gaze, unsure of how to phrase it without giving more than she meant to away.

Silence from his end drew her eyes back up. He was looking at her thoughtfully.

“It’s more than claustrophobia, isn’t it?” He asked quietly. Rey’s heart skipped a beat. How was he able to see right through her?

And why did she feel compelled to answer him?

“Yes,” she admitted in a whisper, “it’s more than claustrophobia.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Rey shook her head, her eyes focusing on the collar of his sweater.

“Okay.”

Surprised but grateful he didn’t push her for more information, Rey gathered the courage to tell him a different secret. She swallowed back a bundle of nerves before saying, “I had a crush on you, too.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t hear you.”

Rey supposed she had said it sort of quietly. And good heavens why didn’t him calling her sweetheart annoy her? Instead, it was completely the opposite. It just seemed _right_. Like he was _meant_ to call her that and she was meant to receive it.

With that somewhat terrifying thought in mind, she repeated herself.

“I had a crush on you.” She risked a glance up. He stared at her as if she was speaking another language. After a few seconds Rey actually got a little worried about him. “Ben?”

“Had?” He choked out, his voice cracking. “As in not anymore?”

“Well,” Rey frowned and stepped back, out of his hold, though she didn’t want to and instantly the cold whipped through her jacket. “I don’t know. You were terrible. But you weren’t terrible tonight. And apparently you weren’t _trying_ to be terrible before. So now I’m confused.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.” He folded his arms across his chest which Rey really wished he hadn’t - or maybe she did - because the movement emphasized his muscular arms beneath his taut sweater. “I really screwed up, didn’t I.”

Rey hummed thoughtfully, wanting to relieve his embarrassment, at least a little. “You did break a door down for me. That counts for something.”

He froze then groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I forgot. How much do you think that’s gonna cost?”

“I don’t know.” A laugh bubbled out of her chest. “But I think that clown was super pissed about it. Be careful going to sleep. He might haunt your dreams.”

Ben lifted his head. “Don’t laugh.” But she saw a smile tug at his full lips. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny. You broke a haunted house. You’re probably cursed now!” Rey continued to giggle but when he grinned - a full on, toothy grin - her breath caught and she stopped. “Ben…”

Sobering instantly, he stiffened and twisted around like he expected a murderous clown to be right there. “What is it?”

When his focus returned to her, his eyes were questioning and concerned, as if nothing else in the world mattered except for her. Rey didn’t know if anyone had ever looked at her like that. He took the step that separated them. They were close, but still not touching.

“Are you okay?”

Rey honestly wasn’t sure.

“I think I do still like you,” she breathed, sidling a bit closer, forced to crane her neck a little to look at him. Had he always been so tall? Ben sucked in a breath and moved his head in a way that caused their lips to brush in a ghost of a touch. She knew it was an accident, that he hadn’t meant to, but the barely-there caress raised goosebumps on her skin and she shivered, definitely not from the cold.

One of his arms slowly snaked around her waist and what little separation remained between them disappeared.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, “I feel it, too.”

Rey flattened her shaking hands against his chest; his heart was beating as if he’d just sprinted a mile, echoing how her own raced.

Was it fear?

No. That’s not what made her pulse spike and her breath catch. Maybe she should have been scared, maybe she should have pulled away from him, but…

He made her feel safe.

Which was insane since an hour ago she couldn’t stand to be around him but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

Rey slid her hands up his chest to his broad shoulders; she raised one hand to his cheek and drew him toward her, until their lips were a hair’s breadth apart. He didn’t move, not an inch, giving her full control. A smile parted her mouth and she leaned in for a chaste kiss.

“I’m not afraid.”

When their lips met the tiny part of her that wondered if her feelings weren’t a result of her overwrought emotions that night fell away. Whatever was between she and Ben was very, very real. That did frighten her; but not enough to keep her from wanting more. So she surged forward and kissed him properly, slipping her fingers into his soft hair. Ben’s other arm came around her as he deepened the kiss, nearly pulling her off her feet. His sinful mouth slid over hers in a way that sent lightning through her veins and pulled a groan from her throat.

A few minutes later, the rest of the group arrived to find Rey sitting atop one of the tables, Ben standing between her legs, the pair of them shamelessly making out.

The following conversation was a bit awkward but everyone took the new dynamic in stride.

After that Halloween, Rey did find it easier to cope with her inner demons. Not because she conquered them but because she came to realize she didn’t have to face them alone.

Ben would be with her, every step of the way.


End file.
